Escrick and Skipwith

Yorkshire (East Riding)

Two
St Helens, two different churches

Less than three miles apart lie two
churches, each one dedicated to St Helen. Yet the contrast
between them could not be more different. One oozes antiquity,
the other has a history rooted in the 19th and 20th Century. The
first church, at Escrick, lies on the main A19 road between Selby
and York, and demands to be visited. Skipwith lies a couple of
miles to the south west, on a quieter side road, and the church
itself is tucked away at the end of another even quieter road.

St Helen's Church, ESCRICK

This is pretty much the view
from the main road, taken from the lych-gate entrance to the
large churchyard, and probably all most people see. As I drove by
on the Wednesday morning, I made a mental note to stop on the way
back south on the Friday.

This is not the site of the
medieval church of Escrick. This was to the south-east, alongside
Escrick Hall (the former manor house), which can be seen from the
road to Skipwith as you leave the village. The Hall is now St
Margaret's School (for Girls) which moved here in 1949.
W.E.Reader, writing in the short church guidebook, says "in
1781, by a private Act of Parliament, the site of the church was
granted to Beilby Thompson to further his plans for improvements
to the surrounds of the Manor House, on condition he built a new
church elsewhere. In consequence, the church and rectory were
demolished and replaced by an ice-house and a new church built on
the present site." This Classical church was replaced again
by the present building to the designs of F.C.Penrose 1856-7.

If you are a good person like
me, and use the church car park, this is the view that awaits you
as you walk towards the church. The church is unusual, having a
six-sided west baptistry, a large circular rose window for the
west end of the nave, a large two-storeyed south-west porch, the
upper room reached by a stair housed in a turret topped by a
stone spire. The tower, approximately 100 feet (30.5 metres)
high, stands to the north of the chancel, and there is an outer
bay to the north-east of the north aisle which serves as a vestry
(this added in 1896). Add today's Spring sunshine and two rows of
daffodils, and it makes a splendid picture.

This shows another view of the
west end of the church. The quality of the workmanship shines
through. As you head towards the porch glance up again at the
tower and spirelet. Gargoyles spout forth from the base of the
embattled parapet. Sadly the interior of the porch, although it
has a stone roof, is disappointing.

The interior is wide, light
and spacious, as this view from the west end to the chancel
shows. A row of stately three-light Decorated windows echo the
fine five-bayed north arcade opposite. The woodwork is all
light-coloured and of a single period, and the main roofs are
also of wood. Sadly a huge tragedy struck the church on 5th
February 1923 when the church was gutted by fire. The church was
restored by the architect John Bilson and reopened on 25th March
1925. The fire gave the magnesium and oolitic limestone of the
original walls a pink tinge, so the repairs were done with
Ancaster stone which has a similar natural hue.

The fine proportions can again
be seen looking west from the high altar, spoilt only by the odd
internal projection of the stair turret to the upper room of the
porch. Here too you can see the unusual interior of the
baptistry, because it is not only vaulted (in brick) but has a
vaulted ambulatory, with an arcade carried on polished Devonshire
marble pillars, both pink and black. This is built over the only
surviving part of the 1781 church, the family burial vault of the
Lords of the Manor (Thompson, and later Lawley family who
received the title of Baron Wenlock from 1839). Their memorials
adorn the walls of the ambulatory, although some are hidden
behind display boards for the present day congregation.

In pride of place however is
the charming font by Giovanni Tognoli of Rome, 1844. It stood in
the former church. Two winged cherubs stand praying back-to-back
with their wings and heads supporting the bowl. Behind placed
directly on the tiled floor (and under a ugly C20 table) is the
one survivor from the original village church, a mutilated effigy
of a C14 (reputedly Sir Thomas de Lancelles d.1324), which was
originally placed in the ogee headed recess in the south wall
outside of this baptistry.

Three of the memorials in this
mortuary chapel are shown above. On the left Beilby Thompson
d1799 (note the owl to the left of the putto's feet), centre
Jane, Lady Lawley d1816 (made by the Danish sculptor Bertel
Thorwaldsen showing her kneeling between two child angels one
with a scroll and the other with an hourglass), and right Richard
Thompson d1820 by Matthew Cotes Wyatt c1834.

The final monument shown is to
Caroline, Lady Wenlock d1868. This is now at the west end of the
north aisle, on the floor, where appreciation of the fine
workmanship is difficult. The original state of the monument is
shown in a photograph on the wall behind, and it stood under the
second arch of the arcade. The 1923 fire badly damaged the
memorial and the effigy split into three pieces. It was made by
Count Gleichen (otherwise Admiral the Prince Victor of
Hohenlohe-Langenburg who was a cousin of Queen Victoria) and
erected in 1876.

St Helen's
Church, SKIPWITH

The second St Helen's
lies a little to the west of the main through-road and the
village pond and its two pubs. The first view which you get
approaching this way shows the stately chancel, one of the main
reasons for the church's inclusion in learned texts on
architecture. This is early Decorated work of c1300, and made
unusual in that all of the windows are straight-headed yet have
fine tracery. However this is really the culmination of the
church's architecture, in fact after parking up and approaching
the church from the west a much different age of architecture is
clearly evident.

The top of the tower
is clearly C15 work, but was the second heightening of a much
older structure. The very base of the tower was originally the
porch to the Anglo-Saxon church here. It has splayed windows. It
was converted into a tower early in the C11 by raising this
bottom stage and adding a second above a stringcourse where
traces of two-light bell-openings can still be seen.

Approaching the
entrance via the C19 S porch, a Norman doorway is seen but it is
the south door itself that must be inspected. This has the
experts in a turmoil, for although the door itself seems C19, the
ironwork is either a very clever imitation or original C13
craftsmanship, in part restored. I shall not offer any opinion,
other than to say it looks convincing to me and is very pretty
anyhow!

The interior is made
ificult to photograph due to the flood of light coming from the
chancel. The stained glass which was here has all been removed,
including the early C14 glass mentioned in the 1995 edition of
the Buildings of EnglandYorkshire: York and the East Riding
volume. This has been taken away to save it from damage from
mining subsidence...... something which hopefully will not mean
the loss of this church too in time to come. The east window is
flanked by modern statues of St Helen and St Simon Zelotes, 1965
by Eric Winters.

Looking west is a
different matter however and the sheer bulk of the Anglo-Saxon
tower arch (probably pre-1000) can be appreciated. You can also
see the successive enlargement of the original church. Firstly a
two-bayed north aisle was added to the nave, followed by a
similar south aisle. The east bays of the nave were added
presumably around the time the decision was taken to build the
magnificent chancel. A surprise though is the absence of a
chancel arch. The clerestory is the latest part of the main
church, probably added when the tower was raised again. The south
aisle itself is C14, but the north aisle was rebuilt in the C16.

A carved stone, which
I did not see, is built into the tower internal wall, which shows
the Destruction of the Norse Gods at Ragnarök. The church lacks
much else of interest. Most of the noteworthy medieval
gravestones have been used to cap the churchyard walls! In the
chancel there are modern memorial tablets carved by Lawrence
Whistler,c1957-82.

So ended my vist to
the two St Helen's and after a brief stop at the magnificent
Selby Abbey (and a wonderful piece of pie from a cakeshop
"Cy's Pies" **Recommended**) there, I was back on the
200-mile trip back to Bristol.